5 Must-Have Media Servers

A good media server has a home in the enterprise because it's a better tool than traditional file shares for storing, archiving, and sharing company multimedia presentations. Linux Planet highlights five media servers -- MediaTomb, Jinzora, Wizd, Firefly Media Server and MythTV -- all of which can run on Linux machines

A media server offers many improvements over traditional file shares for storing, archiving and sharing multimedia presentations. Here are five worthy candidates to consider.

You can share your music, videos, and
photos on your network via regular folder shares, but using a media server gives
you additional functionality and lets you stream to more devices. A Linux media server has a home in the enterprise because it's a superior tool for storing, archiving, and sharing company multimedia presentations.

Here are five different media servers that you
can run on Linux machines:

MediaTomb is an open source UPnP media server,
implementing the UPnP MediaServer V 1.0 specification, released under the GNU
General Public License (GPL). It runs on x86, Alpha, ARM, MIPS, Sparc, and
PowerPC with support for Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Mac OS X.

MediaTomb lets you watch or listen to your media
from UPnP compatible media players and devices. There's on-the-fly transcoding
for converting content format not supported by the player or device. In addition
to browsing and playing your media you can view their metadata, such as album
and artist or photo details, with EXIF thumbnail support. You can even watch
YouTube videos and create links to other Internet content to stream them via
UPnP. You're also provided with a web interface where you can
add/remove/edit/browse your media from your computer or device with a browser.